The very first time I walked into the Spectator office was in 1975, taken there for the summer party by Simon Courtauld, the then managing editor, i.e., he dealt with the business side of the oldest English speaking magazine in the world. Mind you, as I was about to find out, Simon had very little ...

ON BOARD S/Y BUSHIDO, OFF IBIZA—As everyone who has followed the America’s Cup fiasco knows, it is now up to international courts to decide who shall defend what and where. The egregious Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli is the holder, and has been sued by Larry Ellison, an American ...

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day, but I find it strange that it is being commemorated without the Germans. It takes two to tango and two to fight, except back then, when it took the Americans, British, Canadians, and French, not to mention the Polish airforce to subdue the Wehrmacht. Here’s ...

SINDELFINGEN—Sindelfingen is a suburb of Stuttgart, and is known as the German Detroit, except that Sindelfingen is a vibrantly green and leafy town of 60,000 people, half of whom are employed by Mercedes, whereas Detroit is a dying, crime-ridden city of burnt-out blocks and empty lots where ...

Fifty-four years ago this month, dizzy with happiness at having been freed from the jail that was boarding school, I ventured down New York’s 5th Avenue looking for fun and adventure. I knew a place called “El Borracho,” Spanish for drunkard, where my parents used to dine. The owner ...

This being my last week in the Bagel, the butterflies have arrived with a vengeance. Stuttgart, I am told, will be no picnic. Two top judokas, one Japanese, the other German, are in my age group, which I find quite ironic. My boat is named Bushido — the way of the Samurai warrior — and my ...

Not that I had any doubts about how pig-headed, stubborn and ungrateful George W. Bush is, but confirmation of it never hurts. A friend of long standing revealed to me how Brian Mulroney, the ex-prime minister of Canada, and Tony Blair both went to see Dubya in order to plead Conrad Black’s case ...

The French ambassador to London who caused a furor about eight years ago when he referred to Israel as “that shitty little country,” was demoted to Algeria almost immediately. Although the ambassador said it at a private dinner at Lord Black’s house and in jest—I was present; he was ...

We had a preview of sultry August here last week, with temperatures going as far up as 93° Fahrenheit in Central Park, filled to the brim by girls in their summer dresses, and others less modest in their tiny bikinis. For some strange reason, one doesn’t notice men in their summer best, not that ...

The hardest thing in the world for an athlete is to get out of bed in the morning. Show me a man who jumps out of bed and I’ll show you someone who has never trained for top competition. It’s the brutal   preparation that makes one flinch when taking the first morning heavy, ...